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HelloBooks.ai is service business accounting software and bookkeeping software for consultancies, agencies, professional services firms, marketing agencies, design studios, law and CA practices, IT and engineering consultants, contractors and freelancers. Service businesses do not sell units — they sell people, time and outcomes. That means the books have to track time entries by project and member, separate billable from non-billable hours, manage retainers and recurring service contracts, support time-and-materials and fixed-fee engagements side by side, and reconcile unbilled time-in-progress against invoiced revenue at every period close. HelloBooks treats every project as a profit-and-loss centre: scoped budget, logged time at member rates, expenses tagged billable-to-client, sub-contractor and vendor costs, and a live project profitability number that updates the moment a timesheet is approved.
Service-business revenue is messy — proposals turn into contracts, contracts spawn milestones, milestones drive progress invoices, retainers consume against a balance, and unbilled time hangs on the work-in-progress schedule until it gets pulled into an invoice. HelloBooks handles all of it: proposal builder with scope, deliverables and milestone tracking; contracts with SLA management, milestone-based revenue recognition (ASC 606 / Ind-AS 115) and renewal alerts; recurring invoice templates for retainer clients; one-click import of unbilled time entries into a new invoice; credit notes, write-offs and bad-debt provisioning. For US service firms, the platform handles sales tax on services in the states that require it (Hawaii, New Mexico, South Dakota, West Virginia and increasingly more), 1099-NEC year-end filing for independent contractors and Plaid bank-feed reconciliation. For Indian consultancies, GST on professional services at 18%, place-of-supply rules for inter-state and export-of-service zero-rating with LUT, TDS u/s 194J on professional fees received from clients and Form 26AS reconciliation are all wired in.
Beyond invoicing, HelloBooks gives service-business owners the operating-metrics layer that consultancies and agencies actually need: client and project profitability with realization rate (billed value ÷ standard rate × hours), team utilization by member and role, write-off and write-up analysis, retainer-balance reports for every retainer client, accounts receivable aging tied to project managers (not just clients), expense pass-through tracking with markup logic, and proposal-to-revenue conversion analytics. Time entries can be logged via a stopwatch timer, day-view or week-view timesheet, mobile app or calendar integration, and approved through configurable workflows before they hit project budgets. Purchase orders, bills, expense reports and a project-tagged bills-and-expenses module close the loop on cost capture. That is what makes HelloBooks the best bookkeeping software for service-based businesses — generic accounting software treats revenue as a single line and time as something tracked in another tool; HelloBooks ties every hour, every retainer dollar and every billable expense to a client, a project and a person, so utilization, realization and project margin are first-class numbers, not afterthoughts.
Dashboard, Billing &
Projects in One Platform
For consultancies, agencies, and professional services — overview dashboard, invoices & proposals, time & projects, contracts, and purchases with client-centric master data.
Built for Service Businesses
Consultancies, agencies, professional services, and contractors — one platform.
Consultancies
Agencies
Professional Services
Contractors & Freelancers
Invoices, Proposals & Payments
Client-facing sales with invoices, proposals (scope & timeline), recurring invoices, credit notes, and payments received. Import unbilled time into invoices.
- Invoices with client, project, and service/hour line items
- Proposals with scope, deliverables, and milestone tracking
- Recurring invoices and credit notes; payment allocation
Time Entries, Projects & Contracts
Log time with timer, project dashboard, timesheets, and unbilled time. Service contracts with SLA, milestones, and renewal tracking.
- Time entries by project and member; billable vs non-billable
- Project budget vs spent and progress; utilization reports
- Contracts with SLA management and renewal alerts
Bills, Expenses, POs & Master Data
Bills and expenses with project and billable-to-client tracking. Purchases, purchase orders, and purchase analytics. Chart of accounts, clients, services, and tax rates.
- Bills & expenses with project and billable checkbox
- Purchase orders and purchase analytics
- COA, clients, services & deliverables, tax rates
General FAQs
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